Atlantis: The Lost Tales
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| Atlantis: The Lost Tales | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Cryo Interactive |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, Playstation, Sega Saturn, DOS |
| Release date | 1997 |
| Genre(s) | First Person Adventure Game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: K-A (Kids to Adults) |
| Media | CD (4) |
| System requirements | Pentium 90 MHz
|
| Input methods | Mouse |
Atlantis: The Lost Tales is a fantasy adventure computer game developed by Cryo Interactive and published by Dreamcatcher Interactive, and released on September 30, 1997. The game is named after its initial and most important setting, Atlantis. It is the first in a Myst-like series, and is followed by Atlantis II (Beyond Atlantis outside Europe), Atlantis III: The New World (Beyond Atlantis II), Atlantis Evolution and The Secrets of Atlantis: The Sacred Legacy.
Contents |
[edit] Story
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The plot summary in this article or section is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the article. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. |
The player takes on the role of Seth, who goes to Atlantis for the first time of his life to become a guardian of the queen, only to discover that the queen has been abducted. This becomes the start of a great mystery that unfolds over five continents.
The story starts as Seth has been invited to join the Queen's Companions. He is to go see the queen's guard, who are located in the palace. There he meets a woman named Agatha who tells him that the queen has disappeared. Then two men named Meljanz and Lascoyt enter. They are the guards of the consul, who aren't on friendly ground with the Companions. When Meljanz orders Seth to get him some wine, he disobeys the orders, gaining Agatha's trust. Agatha then tells Seth that she does not believe that the queen's disappearance was accidental and that the consul was responsible. Seth starts his investigation by visiting the fisherman near the beach. After finding out that he is a Queen's Companion (the guardians of the consul had been assigned to the investigation and the fisherman did not trust them to put all their effort in trying to find the queen), he shows him an earring that might help him find the queen. He returns to the Atlantis palace, where the consul demands his findings. Seth lies and says that he has found nothing. After a few backstabbings and the death of Agatha, Seth leaves for a forest where the queen allegedly resides.
As the story progresses, Seth learns that the consul and the queen are in the middle of a power struggle. The consul, Creon, is trying to usurp the powers of the moon goddess Ammu, who is currently being worshiped by the majority of Atlantis. Creon and his followers have started a cult that follows the lesser deity, Sa'at, Ammu's consort and Sun God to the Atlanteans. Creon plans to overthrow the Queen and take over Atlantis as king, instill the destructive values of Sa'at and, with the power of his new weapon (which Seth also discovers), invade and conquer the other, desperately struggling nations of Earth.
This new weapon is revealed to be knowledge in a physical crystal form. It fell to Earth on Easter Island and is seemingly responsible for some of man's evolution from prehistory. There the people, the Atlantean ancestors, brought it north with them, possibly to Canada's Central Arctic and Greenlands Thule area as symbolized by the igloos, where the power is split in two: The Light and the Dark. A war erupts that leads to the separation of the two powers: Some people return The Light back to its cave on Easter island and found the mythical place of Shambhala. The others burry the Dark in England, specifically Stonehenge, and settle on the island of Atlantis. Unfortunately Creon has only unburied The Dark whose is said to grant "dangerous power, the kind that drowns its user in madness".
Seth travels to The Light and accepts its power into his body and eventually returns to fights Creon in an underground labyrinth (complete with a Minotaur). Seth defeats him and traps The Dark in a crystal ball, but not before a dormant volcano on Atlantis erupts as a result of Creon's crystal-powered weapon, destroying Atlantis and ending the game. A cut scene shows Seth sailing away with the few Atlantean survivors and a voice tells, "Knowledge is likened to fire. Where would mankind be without it?"
[edit] Gameplay
Atlantis is a first-person perspective puzzle game. The entire game is in 3-D. The HUD is basically a 'window' into the world of Atlantis, except for instead of moving a mouse around the screen, moving the mouse actually moves the screen itself. To interact with the world, the player must position the item, NPC or thing into the middle of the screen. Some critics have found this annoying, as there is no crosshair in the middle of the screen. This means the player must guess where the centre is, and move the screen accordingly. This has since been fixed in Beyond Atlantis and Beyond Atlantis II, where a crosshair is apparent.
Progression through the game involves solving various puzzles of varying difficulty. Some puzzles are extremely abstract and the solution is completely unexpected, whereas other puzzles are very simple. Another feature of Atlantis is having periods where the player must react quickly to certain events happening in the game. For example, in one section guards chase the player away from a certain area. If the player hesitates in moving backwards and looking for shelter, then the player will lose and will have to restart from the beginning of the scene. This can also be frustrating, as there is only one particular path the player may take, and taking any other part results in capture, death and restarting.
[edit] Engine
The game features a number of proprietary technologies developed by Cryo. One such technology is called OMNI 3D which provides a smooth, panoramic 360-degree first-person view of the game environment. Unfortunately, this view tends to be less crisp looking than the movement clips that are pre-rendered in the game. All the character animations are motion captured and feature another technology called OMNI SYNC to ensure proper lip synchronization with audio speech.
[edit] Trivia
Various specimina of 'Atlantean' script in the scenery are actually Tengwar but they have no specific meaning
[edit] References
- 1. Atlantis Review, Quandary/Quandaryland
- 2. Atlantis Review of Gameplay and Engine, Adventure Classic Gaming
- 3. Dreamcatcher games (Note: Cryo Interactive has as of 2006 ceased to exist, and has been incorporated into Dreamcatcher Games)
